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1-50 of 68
- Actor
- Director
King Donovan was born on 25 January 1918 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Promises..... Promises! (1963) and Playhouse 90 (1956). He was married to Imogene Coca and Anne Catherine Thomas. He died on 30 June 1987 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.- Writer
- Actor
- Producer
Horton Foote, the Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist and Oscar-winning screenwriter, was born on March 14, 1916, in Wharton, Texas. He says at the age of ten, he had a "calling" to become an actor, and when he was 16 he convinced his parents to allow him to go to acting school. With their blessing he went to Pasadena, California, where he studied acting for two years at the Pasadena Playhouse. Subsequently, he moved to New York City and studied at Tamara Daykarhanova's Theatre School where he was inculcated with Michael Chekhov's version of the Second Studio technique developed at the Moscow Art Theatre. In time, Foote the dramatist would be hailed as the "American Chekhov," and his education does link him to the Russian master.
Foote was one of the founders of the American Actors Company. He racked up some minor roles on stage, and decided that becoming a dramatist was his best insurance policy for ensuring he received decent roles. In 1944 he made his Broadway debut with "Only the Heart." His fate was sealed when he received better reviews for his writing than for his acting.
Throughout the 1940s Foote continued to write for the theater, including experimental works. He started to write for television to support himself, soon becoming one of the mainstays of the Golden Age of television drama. He wrote teleplays for Playhouse 90 (1956), The Philco Television Playhouse (1948) and The United States Steel Hour (1953). Foote won an Oscar for Best Adapted screenplay for Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), which was the movie debut of Robert Duvall. Foote also continued to prosper on Broadway, with his plays "The Chase," "The Trip to Bountiful" with Lillian Gish and "The Traveling Lady" with Kim Stanley.
After the film of "Mockingbird," Foote adapted "The Traveling Lady" as the movie Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965), but he began to grow disillusioned with Hollywood due to its treatment of his work. Despite being produced by multiple Oscar-winner Sam Spiegel, adapted by Lillian Hellman, and directed by Arthur Penn, as well as featuring one of Marlon Brando's finest performances, the film version of The Chase (1966) was a debacle. It was excoriated by the critics and a flop at the box office.
Now out of favor both in Hollywood and on Broadway, Foote went into an exile of sorts in New Hampshire. Ten years after "To Kill a Mockingbird," Duvall gave a brilliant performance in Tomorrow (1972), the movie made from Foote's adaptation of William Faulkner's eponymous story. The film is a small masterpiece, and was well-reviewed by critics. Foote, whom Duvall calls "the rural Chekhov," wrote an original screenplay for the actor ten years after their collaboration on "Tomorrow." Tender Mercies (1983) brought both of them Oscars, for Best Original Screenplay for Foote and Best Actor for Duvall. A couple of years later, Geraldine Page would win the Best Actress Oscar for Foote's The Trip to Bountiful (1985), which brought him his third Academy Award nomination.
In the 1970s he presented his nine-play cycle "Orphans' Home," based on his family. He remained active as as dramatist and screenwriter throughout the 1980s and '90s, and in 1995, his play "The Young Man From Atlanta," was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Nominated for an Emmy in 1959 for adapting Faulkner's short story "The Old Man" for "Playhouse 90," he would win the Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries or a Special 42 years later for his second adaptation of the story (Old Man (1997)). He remains active in the 21st century, well into his 90s.
Among Foote's prose works are "Farewell: A Memoir of a Texas Childhood" (1999), an account of life in Wharton, Texas. Hoote created the fictional town of Harrison, Texas, which he used as the locale for many of his plays. The first two installments of his autobiography, "Farewell," and "Beginnings," were published in 1999 and 2001, respectively.
In addition to his Pulitzer Prize and two Oscars, Foote was honored with the William Inge Award for Lifetime Achievement in the American Theatre in 1989, a Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy of Arts and Letters in 1998, the Writer's Guild of America's Lifetime Achievement award in 1999, and the PEN American Center's Master American Dramatist Award in 2000.
Horton Foote's success can be attributed to his honest examination of the human condition, and why some people survive tragedies while others are destroyed. His central themes of the sense of belonging and longing for home have resonate with audiences for 60 years.- Douglas Baker, better known by his moniker "Ox" was one of the meanest, vicious, hated and ugliest wrestlers ever. Bald, with a hairy chest, arms and back, Baker would deliberately grow his mustache long and curl his eyebrows up to gain a more "evil" look. It paid off as Baker was jeered and hated by wrestling fans all over. Known for his "love" of beating people up, Baker never won a major title, but was always perfect for feuds with more popular stars like André René Roussimoff, Dusty Rhodes, and Bruno Sammartino. Originally from Sedalia, Mo., Baker got his best national exposure playing Slag, Kurt Russell's opponent in the ring, in the cult classic Escape from New York (1981). Baker is pretty much retired from wrestling scene, but has made an appearance or two on the independent circuits in the 1990s.
- An aristocratic face and presence and a confident voice granted Leonard Harris - an acquaintance of Martin Scorsese - a significant role in Marty's classic Taxi Driver (1976), playing the potential presidential candidate Senator Charles Palantine, a target Travis Bickle has to eliminate in order to impress the girl he wants to date (and who also happens to work for Palantine's campaign). He only has a few scenes in the film but certainly leaves a mark in all of those, especially his memorable exchange with Travis in the cab.
Harris wasn't actually an actor. Born in New York, he was a journalist who wrote obituaries and book reviews during his first years in journalism, and later on during an extensive time he was a culture critic during the late 1960s and early 1970s with many TV appearances. In between those works he wrote three novels. His other film credit is Hero at Large (1980), which also features Gene Palma, the street drummer who has a minor part in Taxi Driver.
He was married to Mary Ann Wurth for 12 years and they had two children. Harris died of pneumonia in Connecticut, at age 81. - Marietta Canty was born on 30 September 1905 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA. She was an actress, known for Rebel Without a Cause (1955), The Heavenly Body (1944) and The Lady Is Willing (1942). She died on 9 July 1986 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.
- Dennis Hernandez was born on 9 February 1956 in Bristol, Connecticut, USA. He was married to Terri Hernandez. He died on 6 January 2006 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.
- Writer
- Actor
Handsome American actor, playwright and stage director/producer William Gillette was born in Hartford, CT, in 1853. His father Francis was a former United States Senator and crusader for women's suffrage and the abolition of slavery; his mother Elisabeth Daggett Hooker is a descendant of Rev. Thomas Hooker, who either wrote or inspired the first written constitution in history to form a government.
In 1873 William left Hartford to begin his apprenticeship as an actor, briefly working for a stock theatre company in New Orleans and then returning to New England. He made his debut at the Globe Theatre in Boston with Mark Twain's play "The Guilded Age" in 1875. His first major Civil War drama, "Hold by the Enemy", was a major step forward to modern theatre in that it abandoned many crude devices of Victorian melodrama and introduced realism into the sets, props, costumes, sound effects and performances; it was a critical and commercial success in America and Britain.
Gillette is probably best remembered, however, as the first actor to be universally acclaimed for portraying Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famed detective Sherlock Holmes, playing the role first on stage in 1899 and continuing for more than 35 years. He also wrote many stage versions from Doyle's Sherlock Holmes novels and even starred in the film version, Sherlock Holmes (1916), directed by Arthur Berthelet for the Essanay Film Co. He had previously appeared in two other films, his debut being in J.P. McGowan's The Battle at Fort Laramie (1913) and the following year he played support as Jack Lane in The Delayed Special (1914), both of which starred Helen Holmes and were made for the Kalem Film Co. Gillette also became popular on radio, performing the first radio serial version of Sherlock Holmes in 1930 and in 1935. His last stage appearance was in Austin Strong's "Three Wise Fools" in 1936. He wrote 13 original plays, seven adaptations and some collaborations, encompassing farce, melodrama and novel adaptation. He also wrote two pieces based on the US Civil War, "Held by the Ememy" and "Secret Service", which were highly acclaimed. In 1882 he married Helen Nichols, who died in 1888 from peritonitis; he never remarried.
Gillette died from pulmonary hemorrhage in Connecticut in 1937 at age 83.- Harriet Beecher Stowe was born into a prominent, religious, Calvinist family in Litchfield, Connecticut on 14 June 1811. She married a seminary professor, Calvin Ellis Stowe, and had seven children, several of whom died during childhood. 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', her first novel, was published in 1852 and provoked, to Mrs. Stowe's satisfaction, an intense and undeniable reaction -- at home and abroad -- against American slavery. She wrote many more novels, none of them as famous or important as her first, the best-selling novel of the nineteenth century. She eventually rejected strenuously the Calvinist teachings of her youth, replacing them with a more merciful and forgiving religious philosophy.
- Louise Stubbs was born on 10 September 1930 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Black Girl (1972), ABC Afterschool Specials (1972) and The Landlord (1970). She died on 16 July 2001 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.
- Kevin Gray was born on 25 February 1958 in Westport, Connecticut, USA. He was an actor, known for Miami Vice (1984), The Equalizer (1985) and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999). He died on 11 February 2013 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.
- Judith Resnick was born on 7 December 1944 in New York, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for The Filthiest Show in Town (1973) and Carnival of Blood (1970). She died on 7 January 1981 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.
- Kenneth Britton was born on 16 March 1901 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA. He was an actor, known for Jiggs and Maggie in Court (1948). He died on 15 May 1964 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.
- Robert Hepburn was born on 4 April 1913 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA. He was married to Susanna Floyd. He died on 26 November 2007 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.
- Make-Up Department
- Producer
- Director
Robert Jiras was born on 28 July 1922 in Dauphin, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a producer and director, known for Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Hustler (1961) and St. Elmo's Fire (1985). He died on 7 January 2000 in Hartford, Vermont, USA.- Dick Sollenberger was born on 10 July 1940 in Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), The Naked Face (1984) and The Fence (1994). He died on 24 March 2008 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.
- Joe Boland was born on 7 July 1903 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. He was an actor, known for Shadow of the Cloak (1951), Man Against Crime (1949) and Jimmy Hughes, Rookie Cop (1953). He was married to Irene Madeline Oviatt. He died on 21 June 1987 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.
- Walter Browne was born on 7 May 1856 in Hull, Yorkshire, England, UK. He was a writer, known for Everywoman (1919). He was married to Clara E. Thorn. He died on 9 February 1911 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.
- Henry G. Sell was born on 31 July 1884 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Fine Feathers (1915), East Lynne (1921) and The Seven Pearls (1917). He died on 20 August 1968 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.
- Anthony Rampino died on 20 December 2010 in New Hartford, New York, USA.
- Blacastan was born on 17 April 1980 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA. He was an actor, known for Czarface: The Great (2015) and Czarface: Sgt. Slaughter (2015). He died on 20 February 2022 in East Hartford, Connecticut, USA.
- Robert Lunny was born on 31 August 1942 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA. He was an actor, known for The Incredible Hulk (1977), General Hospital (1963) and Conquest of the Earth (1980). He died on 19 March 2020 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.
- Francis Carlyle was born on 27 August 1868 in Birkenhead, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Perils of Pauline (1914), Detective Craig's Coup (1914) and Arizona (1913). He died on 15 September 1916 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.
- Ella Grasso was born on 10 May 1919 in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, USA. She was married to Thomas A. Grasso. She died on 5 February 1981 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.
- Marjorie Kay was an actress, known for Sherlock Holmes (1916). She died on 25 June 1949 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.
- Michael Fortunato was born on 20 February 1987. He died on 12 October 2013 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.